Sweetcron is a service that brings you the features of friendfeed and tumblr. Apart from the fact that it’s build for being hosted at your own web server. Kind of a wordpress for feeds. Check the developers site yongfook.com for a working demo blog.

Update: Sweetcron Beta is out for evaluating:

• Sweetcron program files
• Seetcron documenatation

It’s closed beta right now, but the developer, Yongfook, promises to launch it soon. It is going to be 100% open source and offers some more features:

• Automated Imports: Uploaded a photo to flickr? Bookmarked a new site? In a few minutes it will show up on your blog, thanks to the power of RSS feeds
• Easily Customisable: Edit simple templates to change your Sweetcron look.
• Self Hosted: You can keep alll the data safely on your own server and run Sweetcron on your own domain.
• Fully extensible: Write your own php classes and slot them right in!

Check the Interview with Yongfook on Lifestreamblog.com

via t3n

Great news for everyone who can not decide about going open source from the scratch:
You can now download the [stubidnamed] software Wubi from wubi-installer.org. Wubi installs a full Ubuntu Hardy Haron system within windows.

No need to burn a CD. Just run the installer, enter a password for the new account, and click “Install”, go grab a coffee, and when you are back, Ubuntu will be ready for you. You keep Windows as it is, Wubi only adds an extra option to boot into Ubuntu. Wubi does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC, or to use a different bootloader, and does not install special drivers.

After starting the application, you have options for the user interface to choose from:

• Ubuntu with GNOME interface
• Kubuntu with KDE interface
• Xubuntu with XFCE [for older computers]

Then, Wubi starts to download the operating system from a Ubuntu server repository and installs it automatically regarding to your hardware. After rebooting, you can choose whether to start your computer into Windows or Ubuntu. As simple as making a sandwich.

Minimum requirements:

• 256 MB memory
• 5 GB harddisk space
• Windows 98, 2000, XP or Vista

Sounds great. I am trying it just now. Really curious if it can compete in the everyday system battle.

I stumbled across a popular buzzword just a few days ago: OpenMac, a promising base operating system that is ready to be obtained from a company called Psystar in a bundle with an “Open Computer”. Based on this, customers are able to install MacOS Leopard on a simple Intel / x86 hardware:

With the EFI V8 emulator it is possible to install Leopard’s kernel straight from the DVD that you purchased at the Apple store barring the addition of a few drivers to ensure that everything boots and runs smoothly

Psystar is marketing this as a cheaper and more expandable alternative to a genuine Apple Mac. I don’t know what these machines are capable of. We all think: Hopefully, finally, a legal MacOS Clone might hit the scene. Perhaps it will help people who don’t want to afford expensive Apple hardware to run Apple software on their cheap machines?

Actually, the OpenMac company Psystar clone is close to a Cease and Desist order tasked by Apple. Which basically means that Apple will make use of their copyright rules included in Leopards License Agreement:

You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.

Let’s wait and observe. Surely Apple will not tolerate that. Either by weapons of law or by technical regulations [That means non-compatible updates].

BTW: There is another open source project called “OpenMac” powered by Meshnetics, but this one regards to the Medium Access Control Layer and not to the Apple computer.

I am captivated by stuff like that: Large chunks of data, sorted, chewn, displayed and arranged in a flexible way to make it understandable for our pea-sized minds. This is why I love the lecture and videos of Hans Rosling (via Kosmar), who managed to digest the entire data of the past 50 years’ UNO studies in one single faszinating flash tool: Gapminder.

Here is something different:
Dietmar Offenhuber (Austria & Cambridge) and Gerhard Dirmoser (EnergieAG) created the Network Context Visualizer Semaspace. It’s made easy to understand by this video:

SemaSpace is a fast and easy to use graph editor for large knowledge networks, specially designed for the application in non technical sciences and the arts. It creates interactive graph layouts in 2d and 3d by means of a flexible algorithm. The system is powerful enough for the calculation of complex networks and can incorporate additional data such as images, sounds and full texts.

Get a grip here: Two examples to try out for yourself (it’s fun to move around data in 3-dimensional space). You need to install Virtools 3D plugin in order to view this:

• 25 years of ars electronica
• Gedankenraum

Well, in 2009, the music service Musicovery might switch it’s interface to 3D with tech like that.